Don't Bate Your Breath Waiting for a Unicorn

Today we look at unicorn and “bated breath” and ask “Why?”

Why is it unicorn and not unihorn? After all, the mythical creature is known for having one horn, and last week one of the Sunday cartoons speculated that the horse must have fallen face-first into a silo to get a “corn” stuck in its head.

Why is eagerly waiting also known as waiting with bated breath? Or is it baited breath? Why would someone with worm-smelling breath be eagerly waiting something?

Unicorn is where I want to start, because of my music education. The word unicorn came to English in the 1200s from the Old French word unicorne, which the Old French got from the Late Latin word unicornus, which came from the noun use of the Latin word unicornus, which was an adjective meaning “having one horn.” The Latin word for horn is cornus, from which we also get the word cornet, referring to the conical-bore brass instrument equivalent to the cylindrical-bore trumpet. Of course, I am a simple bore. (Cornet came to English about 1400.) So unicorn really means “single horn,” and a rhinoceros would be a unicorn.  

So where does our word “corn” come from? It has been around for a long time as an Old English word, which is related to a Proto-Germanic word for a small-seed: kurnam. In Old English corn referred to a grain with the seed still intact rather than any particular plant. So a pomegranate as well as an ear of corn would be known as corn in Old English.

Now, have you been waiting with bated breath for the next word? Bate is a verb that means to restrain or moderate, to lessen or diminish. So “holding your breath” would also be known as “bating your breath.” 

When the stress of a situation causes you to either moderate or restrain your breathing, the natural human response is bated breath. The word bate is a shortening of the word of abate, and was first used in English in about 1300. Of course, abate means “put an end to” and came from the Old French word abattre, which may have come from the Vulgar Latin abbatere, which means “to beat.” Since baseball season is about to begin it should be mentioned that the word batter also comes from the Old French batre.

The source of the phrase “bated breath” is Shakespeare. The phrase is used by Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, Act 1, Scene 3:

Shall I bend low and in a bondman’s key,

With bated breath and whis’pring humbleness, Say this:

“Fair sir, you spet on me Wednesday last,

You spurn’d me such a day, another time

You call’d me dog; and for these courtesies

I’ll lend you thus much moneys”?

Abbatere also had a meaning of “to slaughter”, hence the alternative word for a slaughterhouse: abattoir (also from the French but not appearing in English until 1820.)

Bait, in its sense of food put on a hook or in a trap, also came into English about 1300, from an Old Norse word for food, beita.

So don’t bate your breath waiting to see a unicorn. Instead, use corn as a bait to catch something that will cause your hunger to abate. Then celebrate it with a fanfare from cornets and horns.